For Whom the Bell Tolls
by erica2004
Summary: AU Tristan returns from war a changed man, a man Rory will come to meet and eventually fall in love with. RT
1. Prologue and Chapter 1

**Title **– For Whom the Bell Tolls

**Pairing **– R/T of course

**Rating** – PG-13 to be safe for future chapters

**Summary** – Tristan returns from war a different man, a man that Rory will come to meet and eventually fall in love with.

**Note** – This story is AU in the sense that it deals with a future Rory and Tristan but set in present time. Just imaging GG premiering in 1997 instead of 2000.

**Disclaimer** – I am not even close to being as brilliant as the creators of Gilmore Girls so why would I own them? That's all theirs even though it is my fondest wish to own Tristan in all his Hotness.

**Reader Warning – **This story involves the war in the Middle East and for those readers with a decided stance (anti/pro) please don't read anything more into it than what is intended. This story is not intended to be a political piece so for the sake of respecting my work, please suspend your disbelief and just enjoy the flow of words.

**Prologue:**

I am asked many times why I decided to stay; why I decided to join up and be a part of a potentially fatal situation. They would think I had everything waiting for me at – not home, but something more impersonal like a dormitory. And every time I would answer with a typical patriotic speech of how I'm "making sure that they can still enjoy those luxuries – protecting that which the American people hold dear". There is something bigger out there than just the latest fall fashion and hi-tech cell phone. I didn't think it would, but military school actually had me look outside the world I live in to the world that the rest of humanity puts up with. You would think I would be the most unsuited soldier, the most unlikely person to join up. At first I thought so too. I got caught up in the fervor of patriotism so rampant within the school. But the cynicism of my youth has ebbed as I saw true suffering. Yes, the neglect of the blue-blood Connecticut society fosters many a suffering person, but one does not truly know suffering until you lose all that you hold dear and must feed off the scraps of others and just survive one day at a time. I want to help people because too many people tried to help me.

So now I am sitting here 4 years later, after a tour of duty that has left me with more than one scar both emotional and physical. I have seen the lowest of the low, the very pit of humanity that is hidden for its blackness. The ghosts of my fallen compatriots walk with me everyday. They whisper and rant and fall silent in each step. Its worst at night. The shadows that follow in the day now surround me at night. In the darkness, the past ceases to be the sun beating down on my back and becomes the light that blinds me. There is always blood. Sometimes it is the rich, oozing burgundy of a fresh wound and other times it is the inky red brown stain of prolonged exposure. At the last, it is the black crusty patch that hides the forming scar below.

There are times when I think of the snow and trees of old. It is then that I truly feel alive. In the never-ending sand and sun, the tiny granules chip away at your sanity and in return you form a wall of apathy. I've likened this wall to water because it does not break in the literal sense. But then again, it could just be my long-standing fascination with the liquid in a dry land that has my brain associating unnecessarily.

The plane has landed and I'm standing on the tarmac relishing moisture that sits in the air. No one is here to greet me like the others that have returned. I suppose that is fitting since it is only right to be greeted when returning home and I am not home yet.

**Chapter 1:**

_Blood. Sweat. But no tears. Oh God. No tears. Running and running. When does it end? Release me. Screams. Breathe in. Breathe out. Wails. I can't see. Oh God, I can't see. Why can't I see? Is that me? Fire. It burns and burns. My skin is melting off. Breathe in. Breathe out. My hands are slick. My feet keep sliding. Running. And falling. Just breathe..._

I sit up and breathe. There's sweat on my forehead and the sheets are damp. The comforter is twisted between my legs and it is hard to get them out. The tiles are cold underneath my soles and it feels good. I look into the mirror and see a wild man. The cold water does little to wash away the terror blatant in those feverish eyes. The stubble on my face feels like the grains of sand and for one moment, I am taken back to the barracks and back to the very thing that has plagued me all these nights.

It is hard to return to the bed. I am exhausted but unwilling and unable to go back to sleep. I am afraid that the dreams will return like the night before and the night before that. But then I remember that I am in a house now and that my bed is not a cot. There is a kitchen and TV and all the very comforts I ran away from so many years ago.

There are no lights on in the kitchen and I feel like a small boy again, sneaking in to steal some food for a midnight snack. Actually, make that a 3 am snack. The cool processed air lulls me into thinking about the day before. My arrival had been expected, so of course there was someone to greet me at the door and give me excuses about why my parents couldn't be there. My old room was just as I had left it, albeit much cleaner. There were still posters up and cd's scattered on a desk. In the medicine cabinet, there was still a box of condoms half-empty. Dinner that night was a terse affair. My parents were not speaking to each other and every now and then I would catch my father leering at the maids. My mother, then nursing a scotch, asked me if my flight was okay and whether or not I was tired. I said that I had slept through most of it and still, yes I was tired. My father excused himself citing work that needed to be finished and left the table through the kitchen entrance. Mother then proceeded to drink herself into oblivion.

I look at the clock and see that half and hour has passed during my ruminations. The long walk up the stairs and through the various hallways to my bedroom feels like a death march. My doom lies behind the polished brass doorknob and every step echoes my hesitation to proceed. The beat of steady military steps is gone and in place is the scared little boy that runs away from nightmares. Opening the door and getting into bed, I lie there staring at the ceiling for what seems like eternity but what my internal clock tells me is really only 40 minutes. The slow drift into slumber seems long in coming but the blessed dreamless sleep is well worth it.

To Be Continued...


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Yes I know these are short chapters, its just that I can't write more than a few hundred words at a time and i frequently undergo writer's block.

Chapter 2:

I, Lorelei Leigh Gilmore III, am a nerd. There's no getting around it. Here I am on a Saturday night a week after finals reading a book – in my ratty old pajamas – waiting for the laundry to finish. How un-hip is that? And another thing, why the hell am I using words like "un-hip"? The former-roomate-known-as-Paris was having more fun than I! There is no justice in this world. Or if there is, it has a sick sense of humor.

As fun as Andrei Codrescu's short essays are, there's no getting away from the fact that I'm reading a text assigned in class three whole years ago. Well okay, so I'm not really reading that. High school yearbooks should count as literature too! I mean, with all the end of the year messages people write and various artistic impressions doodled on the pictures, there's loads of material to write essays about. Think about it. With all the double entendres in the farewells and the drawings up for art interpretation, all the words and lines are laced with meaning. My favorite parts are the pictures with little horns and pitchforks drawn over the shots.

Some deserved the graffiti more than others but I am determined to preserve it in its imperfection. I guess I was feeling a little more nostalgic than usual because now I've opened up my sophomore yearbook. Ah, now there were some happenin' times. Ooohhh, there's Paris with a beard and mustache that's surprisingly an uncanny impersonation of Hitler. And one of my personal favorites: Tristan with a uni-brow, lots of acne, and buckteeth. That was one that I had a lot of fun doing.

Come to think of it, I wonder where he's at now? I mean military school can't have been fun and his parents have enough money to get him into any college he would like. I bet he's knocked up a girl or two and must now live in shame without mommy and daddy's money to support him and his cocaine habit working at a gas station in the middle of nowhere with only two years to live because he's contracted syphilis from one of the many whores he has serviced. Serves him right, that bastard.

But it was just a tiny bit exciting to fight with him. Just a smidgen of fun. I mean, not even visible to the naked eye; like on the nanoscale type fun. Okay, I'm dropping that train of thought.

"Rory, what are doing on the floor with that pen?" Wait a sec, when did Paris get here? She continued, "It is 9 pm on a Saturday night and you're defacing an old yearbook? You, my hermit of a friend, need to get out more. As in now."

"I am very content in my existing condition, thank you very much." I replied with just a hint of annoyance. I can just imagine a pillow being thrown at her face right about now.

"Hey! What was that for? I was just stating a fact. No need to get all violent about it!" Whoops! So I guess it wasn't just my imagination.

"Paris, is there a purpose to you existing in that space at this time?" So I'm a little saucy today, so sue me.

"I was just going to tell you not to wait up since I'm spending the night with Jess. Jeez, who peed in your coffee this morning, miss snippy?" God, I have to love the girl. Who else could both insult me and the love of my life in 9 words or less?

"Like you two do anything else –"

"We do too!"

"Fine, Paris. Just leave. Go have fun like the two crazy kids you are."

And the one high point in my night left the room. Woooo, better stop this crazy whirligig of fun that is Rory Gilmore's night in. Huh.


End file.
